Casting of parts, e.g., metal parts for use in machinery such as turbomachinery and/or dynamoelectric machinery, is conventionally performed by forming a mold of a shape, and pouring or otherwise depositing a liquefied material (e.g., metal) into the mold. The liquefied material is then cooled to form a solidified part in the shape of the opening in the mold. The mold is conventionally formed by creating a wax shape, coating the wax shape, e.g., with one or more ceramic layers, and removing the wax to leave the outline of that shape as the mold for casting the liquefied material.
Particular shapes in parts can be difficult and/or costly to form, as the wax base material used to form those shapes is not always easy to manipulate. In some cases, a “base” (or, general) wax base material is formed, and additional features are then added to the wax model by machining that wax base material to form the features that will be coated and later shape the part. This process can be expensive, time consuming and complex.
Other approaches include adding features to the wax molding tool that forms the shape of the wax model prior to forming the mold. This can be quicker than modifying after forming the wax model, but can be expensive due to the need to re-form the entire wax molding tool. Additionally, modifying the original wax molding tool can cause conflict between features, e.g., features that extend in different directions. Sub-wax models and compilations of wax models can also be used, but these approaches form seams that require correction after the fact.